Out of Touch
Robert E. Horseman, DDS
This column is addressed to that small, but diminishing group of dentists who have the uneasy feeling that the tempo of new dental techniques is leaving them more out of touch than the guy trying to peddle Al Gore for President buttons.
Apparently the Boomers, the Gen-Xers and as-yet-to-be-named generations are importuning the dental profession in a clangorous manner to whiten their teeth and sweeten their breath in ever-increasing numbers. At least, that is the impression given by the Los Angeles Times (Oct. 20, 1999) in reporting “teeth lightening has grown into a $600 million industry.” Traditional dentists, i.e., those who may still be actually engaged in restoring teeth and gums to a healthful condition and who may be, coincidentally, weary of it, will be heartened to learn that succor is on the way.
BriteSmile, Inc. of Lester, PA, relates the Times, has opened six teeth-whitening centers, four of them in the Southern California cities of Beverly Hills, La Jolla, Pasadena and Irvine. The company plans to create a national chain of teeth-whitening centers so that eventually those folks in less affluent areas will have access to the benefits without having to bum a ride. A recruiting team may approach your office at any moment to boost you out of the Sargasso Sea of your practice, parting the Red Sea of your inertia and depositing you into the Sea of Tranquility where you belong.
As Cheryl Lester, BriteSmile’s vice president in charge of marketing so shrewdly points out, “It’s a lot easier to get your teeth whitened than to work out six months at the gym.” True, but Fabio Krautzmeyer of the Porcine Fitness Spas, Inc. counters, “A babe which is got a build like Pamela Anderson is getting more gawks no matter if her teeth is like, you know, chartreuse.” Joining the fray is Fantasia Fetor, Marketing Director of the Pretty Breath 4 U and Replacement Nails 2 Centers, who, stimulated to a healthy glow by the tinkle of cash registers, scoffs, “Feh! A mouth like Julia Roberts, a figure like Naomi Campbell and you got a breath like a dyspeptic hippo and what then?”
The competition for the public’s disposable income has never been more intense or more rapturously engaged. Companies, obeying the basic industry canon (Motto: Give ‘em what they think they want), promise they’ll awaken a tocsin in the blood the public won’t be able to ignore.
So you can readily appreciate the dilemma of the cautious dentist. All of these new cash cows involve the investment of mucho dinero; no two-bit nepenthe, this. You’ve got your blue light lasers, your imported whitening gels and your major advertising budget. You’ve got your breath analyzing meters and volatile sulfur neutralizing agents and major advertising layouts in Cosmo, Seventeen and Architectural Digest.
Well, cheer up all you traditionalists too chicken or ethical to get pitchforked into this imbroglio. A nationwide campaign is about to be launched that will allow you to compete without a zillion dollar outlay for equipment and materials. Your advertising budget may be just as gross, but you’ll sleep better nights, knowing you’ve done the Right Thing.
My partners and I are about to bring back THE BUCCAL PIT. Yes! The transcendent importance of this critical procedure has never received the press it deserves, but we are going to change all that and promise that patients will stream to our offices like pilgrims to the Kaaba in Mecca once the media glom onto the facts.
All dentists recognize the buccal pit as the thin edge of the wedge, the camel’s nose in the tent. Once the public becomes aware that from age six on, they are in the gravest danger of becoming edentulous thanks to Nature’s frequent malforming of the buccal groove, we’ve got it made.
Best of all, there’s no new gear to buy; your handpiece and a little bitty round diamond will allow you to cut some pretty spectacular didos in the eyes of an appreciative public. When it discovers that restoring this crucial area can be accomplished not only with genuine silver amalgam, but a tooth-colored material resembling real enamel, but costing a lot more, the floodgates will open.
Astute practitioners will quickly find that the demand for more exotic materials such as 24K gold foil or small South African garnets will be overwhelming, especially to the boomers who sense that the Good Life may be passing them by.
Let me warn you—franchises for our Buccal Pit Centers will be in short supply. When one of our recruiters comes by, have your checkbook ready. Don’t let this opportunity slip away like you did the Drill-B-Gon Caridex phenomenon of a few years ago.
Originally published in the Journal of the California Dental Association, 10/99.